Imperial Commando
by erttheking
Summary: Delta Squad takes stock as the Republic becomes the Empire, and what they did to help bring it about. Patreon sponsored story


Sev had been talking in his sleep again. This had been something he had done for some time, Boss had heard multiple concerned reports about it, but the nature of it had changed. He had always talked in great detail about what he thought he was doing in his sleep. Scorch had given him multiple reports on how he would remark "I love it when the bugs pop," and "clankers always make that funny sound when you nail em." This had been uncomfortable, though not unheard of from clones that had been deployed to high-stress area, which more certainly fit the bill for what Delta Squad did. It had been tolerated since it did not interfere with Sev's work. Now though? Things had changed. Sev was still dreaming about killing, but his target had changed. "Been waiting for this moment Palpy." That was it. Boss had to put his foot down.

He was sitting in Delta Squad's shared quarters on the Imperial cruiser they were currently on. It took Boss some effort to remind himself that things were Imperial and not Republic now, a common mistake in the months since the restructuring of the government. Scorch was sitting on his right and Fixer his left, all of them filling up the bed that Sev used. It was a blunt but effective way of sending a message. There's a problem and we're not letting you ignore it.

The door opened and Sev was there, his helmet up as he popped the remains of a ration bar into his mouth. His face was the same as Boss's, the same as Fixer and Scorch's. In fact, 75% of the people on the ship had the same face, even with non-clones starting to trickle into the Imperial Army and Navy. He paused, looking over all three of them as he chewed on the ration bar before swallowing it. The numbers "07" were tattooed on his right temple in dark red ink. "What?'

"Oh nothing, just wondering why you're fantasizing about killing the Emperor," Scorch said. He said it in his usual joking tone, but he was looking at Sev with unusual coldness. All of their helmets were off, stowed away in their storage lockers, meaning Scorch's openly happy face and stern eyes were staring directly into Sev's apathetic and distant face. "And maybe wondering if you were going to let us know when you were planning on doing it. Maybe invite us to your execution? We were supposed to be onlookers or dying right there with you?"

Fixer glanced at Scorch. Fixer was one of the clones that were hard to pick out from among brothers. Many clones had unique haircuts or tattoos to make them stand out, but Fixer seemed to take pride in bearing as much resemblance to Jango Fett as possible. If you were to take away his personalized armor and stick him in a batch of new recruits, you'd never be able to find him. "Starting to think that you should've made this a one on one thing, Boss."

Privately, Boss was slowly starting to agree with Fixer, but he had made his decision and backing down on it now would just make things worse. "We're a squad. We live or die together," he said simply, a mantra that had been drilled into all of their heads from the day they had started training. "So we're gonna solve this problem as a squad. Sev? We need to talk about this."

"What's to talk about?" Sev said, idly leaning back against the wall. "I talked in my sleep again? I've been doing that ever since the war started. Scorch ran crying to you when I did it back then and nothing came of it. And now he's whining about it again even though nothing's different. Frankly, this all seems like a waste of time, no offense Boss."

"Oh yeah, different," Scorch said. "Totally the same. Just that tiny little difference where before you were talking about killing people and droids that were trying to kill us by the thousands, and now you're talking about killing the man we're supposed to serve and protect." Again, Scorch's tone was joking, but the layer of venom in it was much more noticeable now.

"You mean we're not supposed to kill the people we're meant to serve and protect?" Sev said, sarcasm dripping into his voice. "Huh. I wish someone had told us that about six months ago. Because we ended up doing a lot of that and we got pats on the back for it. It sent a real mixed message if we weren't supposed to do that."

A heavy silence followed these words, with Sev and Scorch locking eyes. Fixer shifted in his seat but said nothing. Boss broke the silence. "So. That's what this is about."

"Did you think it was about anything else!?" Sev snapped. Boss blinked. He had never heard Sev shout before. He had raised his voice to be heard above blaster fire, but even when hundreds of battle droids had been shooting at them, Sev had been the type to remain calm and collected. But here, there was no getting around it, Sev had yelled not because he needed to be heard, but because he had lost his cool. "Is there anything else that happened recently that you think it could be about?"

Scorch shook his head dismissively. "Well, I was taking this seriously for a second, but it turns out that Sev was just screwing with all of us," he said, sounding as if he was insulting Sev more than he was genuinely revealed. "I mean Sev, of all people, having a problem with that. Oh, that's a good one."

Sev pushed himself off the wall, glaring openly at Scorch. "Oh, don't worry about Sev guys. Sev's just the psychotic killer who loves watching heads explode, he's probably been secretly dreaming about getting a chance to gun down little kids. In fact, it's such a, not big deal that we're all gonna jump in and help him with it and then get uppity at him afterwards. Let's keep treating him like the crazy one, even though after that mess, we're officially no better than he is. In fact, we're probably worse because we're the ones trying to brush it all off as a joke."

"Oh look at that, Sev's pretending to have a conscious," Scorch said mockingly. "Wonder where that was when he was gunning down Geonosians by the dozens. Don't get all high and mighty Sev. You point, you shoot, you kill. It's all you've ever done and it's all you were ever going to be good at."

"I think what 1262 is trying to say, and doing a very poor job at it, is that we were all bred to follow orders, no matter how distasteful they are, because we serve a higher purpose than our own personal comfort," Fixer said. "What we did wasn't pretty, but we had a job to do and we did it. The Jedi were turning against the Chancellor and the government we were sworn to uphold and protect."

"Fixer is right Sev," Boss said. "I understand that you're upset over what we had to do. If anything, I'm glad that you're upset about it. What we did wasn't pretty and I wish that we could've found another way around it. But there wasn't, so we had to get our hands dirty. To protect the Republic." An uncomfortable feeling twisted the inside of Boss's stomach. He'd be lying if he said he didn't have any misgivings about Order 66 being issued but from birth. 150 different contingency orders had been drilled into him and all of his brothers in case a crisis consumed the Republic. They were brutal, vicious, but tragically needed. If Order 65 had been ordered, he and his brothers would have stormed Palpatine's office and deposed him, killing him if the situation called for it. There was a reason the Republic had a clone army, they would do whatever it took to keep the people safe, no matter how vile it was.

Sev turned to look at Boss, and the anger seemed to wane a bit on his face. If anything, he looked more hopeful now. "Boss, think about it," he said. "Order 66 was meant to remove Jedi officers from power. With lethal force, yes, but the exact letter of the order specified officers in the Grand Army of the Republic. Ones who held power and used that power against the Chancellor. But we didn't do that, did we? We might have killed every last general and commander who held command over clones, but we had orders to stamp out every last Jedi there was. We got sent to the temple and got orders to set up a kill zone for anyone running out the back door."

Boss remembered that. Scorch had planted charges on the back entrance to the temple while Sev had been a few klicks back with his DC-17m at the read. A Jedi Knight with a few Padawans had tried to make a run for it, but with the charges detonating, Sev firing from a distance, and a coordinated ambush with the rest of them all utilizing thermal detonators, only one had survived for more than a few seconds. And even he had fallen to a well-placed blaster bolt from Sev. Right to the back of the head. The Jedi had been focusing on deflecting blaster bolts from Boss. Even if they had been a Jedi master, a Jedi master couldn't have a lightsaber in two places at once.

"None of those Jedi were in positions of power in the Grand Army of the Republic. We didn't have to kill them, it didn't serve any purpose for protecting the Chancellor. Or are you going to seriously argue that all the kids at the Jedi Temple were in on the plot to overthrow the Chancellor?" He paced back and forth, his gaze jumping from nothing and particular to Scorch, to Boss. "Something's wrong here Boss. All the vile stuff we've done for the Republic, we accomplished something. What do we gain here?"

"Look Sev," Scorch said, his false joking tone dropping. "You can't just-" but Sev had lost all patience.

"HE TURNED US INTO CHILD KILLERS!" he shouted. "Don't you care Scorch!? When did we become this? We're soldiers, not butchers! Or did that change when I wasn't paying attention?" A heavy silence followed these words. "What happened to us?" Sev asked, his voice cracking. "We killed droids. We killed slavers. We killed scum. This isn't what they trained us for. This isn't why they taught us Order 66."

"Sadly Sev, this is beyond us," Boss said heavily. "Clones were made to follow, not to dictate the fate of the Republic."

"The Republic is dead," Sev said bitterly. "Remember? We're not a Republic anymore. We're an Empire. We're Imperial Commandos now." He spat on the ground. "And apparently Imperial Commandos hunt down children and slaughter them just in case they turn out to be powerful enough to overthrow Palpatine. This is a joke. A bad joke. So yeah. Maybe I have a couple of dreams about what I'd like to do with our so-called Emperor if I was alone in a room with him." He glared at everyone else. "Are you honestly going to claim that you're ok with all of this?"

"Did I say that?" Scorch said. It wasn't clear what Sev had said to make it happen, but all the venom had drained out of Scorch's voice. He didn't sound bitter anymore, just tired. "I don't like this. But we're Clones Sev. It's what we do. I mean, what else can we do? Go rogue? They'd just send more commandos to hunt us down. Best case scenario, we die for nothing. Worst case scenario? We kill a bunch of our brothers and then die for nothing. I don't like what we're doing now, but there's no other option that's preferable. Best we can do is stick it out and hope things get better."

Sev looked at Scorch a good long while, his face unreadable, before turning his attention to Fixer. "And you agree with him on this one?" Fixer nodded, not saying anything. "Boss?" His gaze fell upon the leader of Delta Squad.

"Not exactly," Boss said. This got a reaction from everyone in the room, all of them turning to face Boss with startled expressions. "Scorch is half right. If we do anything reckless, like deserting, it's not gonna make anything better for anyone. We're in a better position where we are right now, hunting down the Jedi. And let me make something perfectly clear. Every mission we go on is going to end with us reporting that all targets were eliminated, and we're not going to bother them with details that aren't important. Such as Sev's rifle suffering a few minor malfunctions and his shots going wide. Or Scorch's bombs being a little to the left of the target. That sort of thing."

There was a moment where Sev looked confused, but then understanding dawned behind his eyes. Taking a step back, he opened the door to the quarters, peeked out, looked both ways, and then shut it again. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" he asked, sounding as if he thought it was too good to be true. "Because, Boss, I really don't think I could handle you playing me right now, so I need to make sure we're on the same page."

"Desertion is more extreme, yeah, but insubordination?" Scorch asked. "Not much better, and to the new regime, it's probably just as bad. Both will get you a blaster bolt to the back of the head." Oddly, Scorch was calm and calculating. Not angry like Sev or sarcastic like Scorch, a simple, calculated take on the situation. "They'll be keeping a sharp eye on us Boss, they don't just take the words of operatives at face value, even commandos."

"I never said it would be easy or safe," Boss said. "But I think the way forward is pretty clear. It's a risk? Yes. We risk our lives no matter what we do. And risking being caught for insubordination is no different risking being shot by a battle droid. Either way, you end up a corpse because you didn't do your job properly or you had a run of bad luck due to circumstances outside your control. Either way, you end up a lifeless body. We didn't have any problems with one, so I can see ourselves adapting just fine to the other." Fixer gave a shrug, and Boss knew that was all the convincing he needed. Fixer was simple in a lot of ways. Give him orders and give him a good justification and that would be good for him. Scorch was who he had to focus on.

"We live or die as a unit, it's always been that way," he said, looking at the squad's demolition's expert. "And nothing has changed there. Are you with us? We can't do it without you."

Scorch looked uncomfortable, fidgeting where he sat. "They never really trained us for this," he said. "We were taught how to follow orders, not disobey them. I think we might be signing our own death warrants with this."

Boss nodded. "True. But we might also be burning the death warrants of the people we were supposed to protect in the first place. I think that might be a good trade. And if we get a good opening, a safe haven to hide in, well, maybe we should consider bailing on the Empire. After all, I don't think Palpatine is going to go unchallenged forever. And whoever goes up against him is going to need well-trained men of good breeding on their side. What do you say?"

Scorch looked at Boss and took a deep breath. "I'm was never going to be the person who made the squad a 3-1 issue on anything, no matter how much I wanted to. But, well, ok. But we've gotta be careful about this, we can't bring anyone else in on it, and we triple and quadruple check everything before we even hit the field."

"He's right Boss," Sev said. "And...thanks."

"Don't thank me, I should've done this long ago," Boss said. "The second we got the order. It's too late for that now, so we're gonna have to make do with what we have. Look. You three are probably all exhausted, go and get some R&R. That's an order." Fixer got to his feet at once, gave a crisp salute, and left. Sev gave a salute of his own, giving a small smile, and followed suit.

Scorch lagged behind. "Look...I gotta go apologize to Sev," he said. "Things got heated back there. Bye Boss." Boss nodded as Scorch gave one last look before following his brothers.

Removing his armor, Boss turned over and laid down at his bed, looking up at the ceiling. He could still remember the look on the face of the Jedi Knight as he realized he and his wards had been ambushed. The cries of pain as Scorch's charges had gone off, and how Sev had brought it to a tragically short end. He would never forget that moment. He probably shouldn't. It would keep him motivated to make up for it. And when everything was said and done, he would probably end up wherever the Knight and his wards had ended up. Even if he got through without a scratch, he would probably take it upon himself to find out where that was.

He would deserve it, anyway.

XXXXX

Author's Note: I've been catching up on the Clone Wars series and apparently the canon explanation behind Order 66 has been changed from the Clones being drilled to follow 150 contingency orders to them just having chips installed in them to follow orders. Needless to say, I went with the older version, I think it had more storytelling potential. Honestly, I cherry-picked a lot with this one, going with the new canon where Delta Squad appeared in the Clone Wars series (and hopefully didn't have to leave Sev behind) but ignoring the control chips.

Sorry about the wait, I honestly just didn't know how I wanted to end this story for a long time. Plus, life's been a bit of a struggle lately. Living in America when you're not an ultra-nationalist or ultra capitalist right now is...hard. Really fucking hard. Like, sometimes I just want to throw in the towel and give up hard. But I'm forcing myself through it. Last year of grad school is coming up, hopefully, I'll be doing my student teaching in the spring. Hopefully, I'll feel better once I've got a proper salary, being able to support yourself probably does wonders for your mood.

I would like to thank my Patrons, SuperFeatherYoshi, xXNanamiXx, RaptorusMaximus, Davis Swinney, Mackenzie Buckle, and Josue Garcia for their amazing support.


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